September is Work/Life Balance Month

HAPPY September and our new theme of WORK-LIFE Balance.

How much time is spent tending to your mind, body, and spirit? 

To maintain work-life balance, we must practice self-care holistically which means that the whole self, mind, body and spirit must be tended to consistently. Work-life imbalance can lead to nurse burnout; therefore, healthy nurses must make a conscience effort to practice self-care for the promotion of work-life balance.

To be the best nurse you can be, you must practice self-care to promote work-life balance. What good are you to your patients if you aren’t healthy? We have a duty, as nurses, to set the example of health and wellness to our patients. Our patients will be more apt to listen and learn from us when we are demonstrating our own health and wellness; our patients will be subjected to the most healing experience when we are healthy.

We are nurses! Nursing is part of our being. We look at all others with a nursing eye. Our nursing spirit is applied to everything in life, but sadly most of us don’t see ourselves with that same nursing eye and nursing spirit.  To fix that, use the Nursing Process on yourself to determine if you are at risk for work-life imbalance.

The Nursing Process was ingrained in us since the beginning of our nursing school days! We were all trained to use it and understand it, and by now, the Nursing Process is second nature to all of us. You don’t even realize you’re using it when you encounter your patients.

Assess yourself to determine if you are at risk for work-life imbalance.

We wish you well on your work-life balance journey!

Tracey Jaworski-Lucas, BSN, RN and the Healthy Nurse Healthy Nation-NJ Team